Uploaded October 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Mall of Georgia is an enclosed super-regional shopping mall located in unincorporated Gwinnett County, Georgia, near the city of Buford, 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Atlanta. Opened in 1999, it is currently the largest shopping mall in both the Atlanta Metropolitan Area and the state of Georgia,[2] consisting of more than two hundred stores on three levels.[1] Featured in the mall is a large village section, comprising lifestyle tenants and restaurants in an outdoor setting, as well as a 500-seat amphitheater. In 2017 the Mall of Georgia renovated the indoor food court area by updating the seating arrangements, furniture styles, and color schemes. Mall of Georgia was built by and is still owned by Simon Property Group. A portion of the Ivy Creek Greenway runs along the shopping mall area. The mall features the traditional retailers JCPenney,Belk, Dick's Sporting Goods, Macy's, Dillard's, and Von Maur, in addition to a 20-screen Regal Cinemas which also features IMAX. The anchor stores are Von Maur, Macy's, Dillard's, Belk, JCPenney, Havertys Furniture, Barnes & Noble, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Regal Cinemas.
History
The Mall of Georgia officially opened August 13, 1999 drawing shoppers away from Gwinnett Place Mall, and featured Dillard's, JCPenney, Lord & Taylor, and Nordstrom as its anchor stores, with Bed Bath & Beyond, Haverty's, and Galyan's (now Dick's Sporting Goods) as additional junior anchors.[2] Lord & Taylor, Dillard's, and JCPenney opened on August 11, 1999, two days before the official opening of the mall.[3] The Mall of Georgia also has a 20-screen Regal Cinemas and an IMAX Theater. In 2000, Atlanta-based Rich's was added on,[4] and many more mall stores were added, bringing the total number of stores in the mall to more than 200. Lord & Taylor was repositioned and shuttered entirely; it was replaced with Belk in 2005.[5] Following Federated Department Stores' (now Macy's, Inc.) decision to consolidate nameplates in 2003, the Rich's store at Mall of Georgia was dual-branded as Rich's-Macy's, and the Rich's name was dropped entirely in 2005. In 2015, it was announced Von Maur would be joining the center, replacing Nordstrom.[6]
Current anchors
Belk (2005-present)
Dillard's (August 11, 1999-present)
JCPenney (August 11, 1999-present)
Macy's (March 6, 2005-present)
Von Maur (2016-present)
Former anchors
Lord & Taylor (August 11, 1999-2003)
Nordstrom (August 13, 1999-2015)
Rich's (2000-March 6, 2005)
Statue
The statue atop the mall is of Button Gwinnett, one of the first men to sign the United States Declaration of Independence and for whom its location of Gwinnett County is named.[7]
Mall of Georgia is an enclosed super-regional shopping mall located in unincorporated Gwinnett County, Georgia, near the city of Buford, 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Atlanta. Opened in 1999, it is currently the largest shopping mall in both the Atlanta Metropolitan Area and the state of Georgia,[2] consisting of more than two hundred stores on three levels.[1] Featured in the mall is a large village section, comprising lifestyle tenants and restaurants in an outdoor setting, as well as a 500-seat amphitheater. In 2017 the Mall of Georgia renovated the indoor food court area by updating the seating arrangements, furniture styles, and color schemes. Mall of Georgia was built by and is still owned by Simon Property Group. A portion of the Ivy Creek Greenway runs along the shopping mall area. The mall features the traditional retailers JCPenney,Belk, Dick's Sporting Goods, Macy's, Dillard's, and Von Maur, in addition to a 20-screen Regal Cinemas which also features IMAX. The anchor stores are Von Maur, Macy's, Dillard's, Belk, JCPenney, Havertys Furniture, Barnes & Noble, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Regal Cinemas.
History
The Mall of Georgia officially opened August 13, 1999 drawing shoppers away from Gwinnett Place Mall, and featured Dillard's, JCPenney, Lord & Taylor, and Nordstrom as its anchor stores, with Bed Bath & Beyond, Haverty's, and Galyan's (now Dick's Sporting Goods) as additional junior anchors.[2] Lord & Taylor, Dillard's, and JCPenney opened on August 11, 1999, two days before the official opening of the mall.[3] The Mall of Georgia also has a 20-screen Regal Cinemas and an IMAX Theater. In 2000, Atlanta-based Rich's was added on,[4] and many more mall stores were added, bringing the total number of stores in the mall to more than 200. Lord & Taylor was repositioned and shuttered entirely; it was replaced with Belk in 2005.[5] Following Federated Department Stores' (now Macy's, Inc.) decision to consolidate nameplates in 2003, the Rich's store at Mall of Georgia was dual-branded as Rich's-Macy's, and the Rich's name was dropped entirely in 2005. In 2015, it was announced Von Maur would be joining the center, replacing Nordstrom.[6]
Current anchors
Belk (2005-present)
Dillard's (August 11, 1999-present)
JCPenney (August 11, 1999-present)
Macy's (March 6, 2005-present)
Von Maur (2016-present)
Former anchors
Lord & Taylor (August 11, 1999-2003)
Nordstrom (August 13, 1999-2015)
Rich's (2000-March 6, 2005)
Statue
The statue atop the mall is of Button Gwinnett, one of the first men to sign the United States Declaration of Independence and for whom its location of Gwinnett County is named.[7]

![Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen Sign Multi-Million Dollar Contract with BMG Kidz (March 8, 1994)
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Fuller Olsen (born June 13, 1986), also known as the Olsen twins, are American fashion designers and former actresses. Mary-Kate and Ashley made their acting debut as infants playing Michelle Tanner on the television sitcom Full House (1987–1995). As they grew older, they began starring in other television shows, films, and media through their own production company, Dualstar. The twins became preteen icons, and some of the wealthiest women in the entertainment industry at a young age.
The Olsens stepped away from acting in the mid-2000s and entered the fashion design industry. They founded their own luxury fashion label in 2006, The Row, based in New York City. They have won several awards from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).
The twins were born in Sherman Oaks, California, to David Dave Olsen[1] and Jarnette Jarnie (née Jones[2]). They have an elder brother, Trent, and a younger sister, actress Elizabeth, as well as a half-sister, Courtney Taylor, and a half-brother, Jake.[3] The twins parents divorced in 1995; Taylor and Jake are from their fathers second marriage.[4] The Olsen twins have English and Norwegian ancestry.[5]
In 1987, at the age of six months, the twins were cast in the role of Michelle Tanner on the ABC sitcom Full House. They began filming at nine months old. In order to comply with child labor laws that set strict limits on how long a child actor may work, the sisters took turns playing the role. The Olsens continued to portray Michelle throughout the shows run, which concluded in 1995.
In 1992, Mary-Kate and Ashley shared the role of Michelle Tanner when they guest-starred on the Full House crossover episode of Hangin with Mr. Cooper. While starring on Full House, the Olsens also began appearing (as separate characters) in films for video and television. The first such film, To Grandmothers House We Go, debuted in 1992 and featured cameos from several other Full House actors. In 1993, the Olsens established the company Dualstar, which would produce the twins subsequent films and videos, including 1993s Double, Double, Toil and Trouble and 1994s How the West Was Fun. A series of musical mystery videos called The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley premiered in 1994 and continued through 1997.
In 1995, following the end of Full House, the Olsens made their feature film debut in It Takes Two, co-starring Steve Guttenberg and Kirstie Alley. In the same year, they introduced a second video series, Youre Invited to Mary-Kate & Ashleys..., which continued to release new entries until 2000.
The following year, the Olsens appeared in an episode of All My Children.[6] In 1997, they appeared once again as guest stars in an episode of Sister Sister. Also, in 1998, the twins returned to series television with another ABC sitcom, Two of a Kind, co-starring Christopher Sieber as their characters widowed father. The series lasted only one season but aired in reruns on cable for several years afterward. 1998 also saw the release of Billboard Dad, the first of a new string of direct-to-video films starring the Olsens. The final such film, The Challenge, debuted in 2003.
In 2000, the Olsens appeared in an episode of 7th Heaven as bad girls Sue and Carol Murphy.[7] The following year, the sisters starred in two new series: So Little Time, a live-action sitcom on Fox Family (later ABC Family); and Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action!, an animated series airing Saturday mornings on ABC. Both shows were canceled after one season, although Mary-Kate received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for her performance on So Little Time.
Mary-Kate and Ashley were popular figures in the preteen market during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Their names and likenesses extended not only to movies and videos, but to clothes, shoes, purses, hats, books, CDs and cassette tapes, fragrances and makeup, magazines, video and board games, dolls, posters, calendars, and even telephones and CD players—with a market share made up mostly of the tween demographic. Mattel produced various sets of Mary-Kate and Ashley fashion dolls from 2000 to 2005, along with separate outfits and accessory packs.
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The sisters became co-presidents of Dualstar on their 18th birthday in 2004. Upon taking control of the company, Mary-Kate and Ashley made moves to secure the future of the company by releasing products that appealed to the teen market, including home decoration and fragrances.[10] The Dualstar brand has been sold in more than 3,000 stores in the United States and over 5,300 stores worldwide.[11] The Olsens have appeared on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list since 2002;[needs update] in 2007, Forbes ranked them (collectively) as the eleventh-richest women in entertainment, with an estimated net worth of US$100 million.[12] Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen Sign Multi-Million Dollar Contract with BMG Kidz (March 8, 1994)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yDeYgZKM06Q/mqdefault.jpg)
![Tom Cruise Interview on A Few Good Men (December 2, 1992)
A Few Good Men is a 1992 American legal drama film based on Aaron Sorkins 1989 play. It was written by Sorkin, directed by Rob Reiner, and produced by Reiner, David Brown and Andrew Scheinman. It stars an ensemble cast including Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, J. T. Walsh, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Kiefer Sutherland. The plot follows the court-martial of two U.S. Marines charged with the murder of a fellow Marine and the tribulations of their lawyers as they prepare a case.
Produced by Castle Rock Entertainment, the film was released by Columbia Pictures on December 11, 1992, and premiered on December 9, 1992, at Westwood, Los Angeles. It received acclaim for its screenwriting, direction, themes, and acting, particularly that of Cruise, Nicholson, and Moore. It grossed more than $243 million on a budget of $40 million, and was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin was inspired to write the source play, A Few Good Men, from a phone conversation with his sister Deborah. A graduate of Boston University Law School, she had signed up for a three-year stint with the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate Generals Corps.[4] She said that she was going to Guantanamo Bay to defend a group of Marines who had nearly killed a fellow Marine in a hazing ordered by a superior officer.
Sorkin wrote much of his story on cocktail napkins while bartending at the Palace Theatre on Broadway.[5] He and his roommates had purchased a Macintosh 512K; when he returned home, he would empty his pockets of the napkins and type them into the computer, forming a basis from which he wrote many drafts.[6]
Cruise said that he modeled his performance on Church of Scientology chairman David Miscavige, with whom he is friends.[19] Cruise insisted on using the churchs Clearsound sound reproduction technology, which he claimed captured his voice better.[10]
Reception
Box office
A Few Good Men premiered at the Odeon Cinema, Manchester, England,[20] and opened on December 11, 1992, in 1,925 theaters. It grossed $15,517,468 in its opening weekend and was the top film at the box office for the next three weeks. Overall, it grossed $141,340,178 in the U.S. and $101,900,000 internationally for a total of $243,240,178.[21]
On Rotten Tomatoes, A Few Good Men has an approval rating of 84% based on 67 reviews, with an average rating of 7.10/10. The sites critical consensus reads, An old-fashioned courtroom drama with a contemporary edge, A Few Good Men succeeds on the strength of its stars, with Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and especially Jack Nicholson delivering powerful performances that more than compensate for the predictable plot.[22] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 62 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating generally favorable reviews.[23] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of A+ on an A+ to F scale, one of fewer than 60 films in the history of the service to earn that grade.[24]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said, That the performances are uniformly outstanding is a tribute to Rob Reiner (Misery), who directs with masterly assurance, fusing suspense and character to create a movie that literally vibrates with energy.[25] Richard Schickel in Time called it an extraordinarily well-made movie, which wastes no words or images in telling a conventional but compelling story.[26] Todd McCarthy in Variety magazine predicted, The same histrionic fireworks that gripped theater audiences will prove even more compelling to filmgoers due to the star power and dramatic screw-tightening.[27] Roger Ebert was less enthusiastic in the Chicago Sun-Times, giving it two-and-a-half out of four stars and finding its major flaw was revealing the courtroom strategy to the audience before the climactic scene between Cruise and Nicholson. Ebert wrote, In many ways this is a good film, with the potential to be even better than that. The flaws are mostly at the screenplay level; the film doesnt make us work, doesnt allow us to figure out things for ourselves, is afraid well miss things if theyre not spelled out.[28]
Widescreenings noted that for Kaffee, Sorkin interestingly takes the opposite approach of Top Gun, in which Cruise also played the protagonist. In Top Gun, Cruise plays Pete Maverick Mitchell, a hotshot military underachiever who makes mistakes because he is trying to outperform his late father. Where Maverick needs to rein in the discipline, Daniel Kaffee needs to let it go, finally see what he can do. Sorkin and Reiner were praised in gradually unveiling Kaffees potential in the film.[29] Tom Cruise Interview on A Few Good Men (December 2, 1992)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yQFLOdRftQE/mqdefault.jpg)
![Meg Ryan & Alec Baldwin Interview on Prelude to a Kiss (July 9, 1992)
Prelude to a Kiss is a 1992 American romantic fantasy film directed by Norman René and starring Alec Baldwin, Meg Ryan, and Sydney Walker. The movie follows a conservative man Peter (Baldwin) and a liberal woman Rita (Ryan) falling in love. On their wedding day, Rita (who fears lifes uncertainties and is cynical of the world) is kissed by an elderly stranger named Julius (Walker), causing their souls to switch places. Peter realizes the change and reunites with Rita, now in the form of an elderly man. While trying to figure out how to restore his wife, Peter tries to connect with Rita despite her new form.
The movie is based on the 1988 play of the same title that was also directed by Norman René and written by playwright Craig Lucas, who adapted the films screenplay. Alec Baldwin and Debra Monk were part of the cast in the plays worldwide premiere in New York City as well as the film cast, though while Baldwin reprised the same part, Monk played a new role. The title is taken from the 1938 torch song of the same title by Duke Ellington. Regarding the movies story, critic James Hebert wrote: When it [the play] premiered in 1990, it was widely presumed to be an oblique response to the ravages of AIDS. Long removed from that time, it becomes a broader commentary on eternal topics like the limits of love and the meaning of commitment.[1] Meg Ryan & Alec Baldwin Interview on Prelude to a Kiss (July 9, 1992)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yVxSWeFAWyY/mqdefault.jpg)

![Carrie Meek Backs Rubin Askew Instead of Jesse Jackson for Presidential Nomination (Feb. 17, 1984)
BOGERT, REVEREND JESSE JACKSON, CAMPAIGN SOUTH MIAMI, NOBLE SISSLE JR., JACKSON, FLORIDA COORDINATOR CARRIE MEEK AND BARBARA CAREY ALL SOT.
1984/02/17
Carrie Mae Pittman Meek (April 29, 1926 – November 28, 2021) was the United States Representative for Floridas 17th congressional district, from 1993 to 2003. Having been elected in the September 1992 primary with no general election opponent, she was the first African American since the Reconstruction era elected to represent Florida in the United States Congress, where she advocated for the poor and for members of minority groups. An educator, legislator, stateswoman and a member of the Democratic Party, she served from 1979 to 1982 in the Florida House of Representatives, from 1982 to 1992 in the Florida Senate, and from 1993 to 2003, as a congresswoman in the United States House of Representatives. She was the founder of the Carrie Meek Foundation.Early life and educationCarrie Mae Pittman[1] was born on April 29, 1926, in Tallahassee, Florida,[2] where she was raised, the youngest of 12 children of Willie and Carrie Pittman.[3] She was the daughter of sharecroppers and granddaughter of a slave.[4]Meek was a graduate of Lincoln High School. She remained in north Florida for college and was graduated from Florida A&M University (a historically black university then known as Florida A&M College for Negroes) in 1946. Her degree was in physical education and biology, and she also lettered in track and field.[3] At that time, African Americans were not admitted to graduate schools in Florida, so Meek enrolled in the University of Michigan and received her master of science degree in 1948.[2]Academic careerAfter graduation from the University of Michigan, Meek was hired as a teacher at Bethune-Cookman College, another historically black college in Daytona Beach, Florida. Following that, she taught at her alma mater, Florida A&M University.[2] Meek moved to Miami in 1961 to serve as special assistant to the vice president of Miami-Dade Community College.[2] Largely due to Meeks integral role in the administration of the college during the push for its integration, the college was desegregated in 1963.[5]Throughout her years as an educator, Meek was also active in community projects in the Miami area.[6]Political careerFlorida LegislatureWhen state representative Gwen Cherry, Floridas first woman African American legislator, died in a car crash in 1979,[7][8] Meek decided to run in the special election to succeed her. She was elected to the Florida House as a Democrat.[9] As a state representative, she introduced a bill criminalizing stalking.[2] She served until 1982.[9]Meek never lost a race for reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives.[12] She announced that she would not seek re-election in the 2002 election, and retired from the House at the end of her term in January 2003. Her son, Kendrick Meek, ran for her vacated seat and succeeded her.
Meek was married twice. Her husbands were Lucius Davis and Harold Meek. Both marriages ended in divorce.[3][15] She had three children, two daughters, Lucia Davis-Raiford and Sheila Davis, and a son, Kendrick Meek.[12]Renown for liberal opinions, folksy yet powerful oratory, and colorful Republican bashing, once while discussing why she was a Democrat, she said, “The last Republican that did something for me was Abraham Lincoln”.[16]After her retirement from politics, she spent much of her time running the Carrie Meek Foundation, which she had founded in 2001 to provide resources and opportunities for those living in her Miami-Dade community. She stepped down for health reasons in 2015.[12]She died at her home in Miami on November 28, 2021, at the age of 95.[4][11][10]Awards and honorsThe Carrie Meek – James N. Eaton, Sr. Southeastern Regional Black Archives Research Center and Museum in Tallahassee, Florida, on the campus of Florida A&M University, was co-named in Meeks honor.[17]She was a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, and an honorary member of Iota Phi Lambda sorority.[18]Meek was also awarded honorary degrees by a number of institutions, including Florida A&M University, University of Miami, Barry University, Florida Atlantic University, and Rollins College.[12] Carrie Meek Backs Rubin Askew Instead of Jesse Jackson for Presidential Nomination (Feb. 17, 1984)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zbFEEBzHQaw/mqdefault.jpg)